Last weekend, we suffered a rare home defeat to Tottenham Hotspur and then exited the Carabao Cup at Anfield on Wednesday, losing on penalties after a hard-fought 1-1 draw.

The outcomes of the two games were disappointing, but Alonso saw improvements from his side in midweek. Now he wants to see us build on those foundations for Manchester United's visit in tomorrow's lunchtime kick-off.

‘It's a big one,’ the Blues manager said in his pre-match press conference. ‘We didn’t have much time to prepare, but it’s really important after the last home game that we keep winning games, and we have this winning feeling.

‘We need to have good control, good emotional control, be comfortable, be intense, control their quality.

‘They have many players that get close to each other when they have good connections. We need to be aware of that and we need to be brave and play our game with personality. The first goal...it's going to be important as well.’

Alonso would have ideally liked a longer turnaround between Wednesday night’s game on Merseyside and the return of Premier League action. However, he insisted his players will be ‘in the best possible condition for tomorrow’ physically and mentally.

Alonso explained that part of his pre-match discussions with his squad have centred on ignoring the outside noise regarding tomorrow's visitors, who are fresh off 4-1 and 3-0 losses to Como and Bournemouth respectively. Our manager hopes last weekend’s result serves as a learning in that respect.

He said: ‘It doesn't change the situation. We need to prepare the same way. We control what we can control. It's our preparation, our decisions, our mindset, knowing that they're a good team.

‘Against Tottenham, we said the table doesn't matter. At this moment, it doesn't matter. It's too early to tell. And United have a good squad; they have good players and a good manager. It’s going to be a tough game, and we’ll have a good version of us to win the game.

‘This is going to be the journey. We'll have good moments, tough moments, but we need to learn from them. I saw a better version of us on Wednesday than I saw on Saturday, even if the result wasn’t good in either, but I want to see more of the good version of us.’

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